A PIECE of county history has been restored to its gleaming best.

The famous Dorset Red Post on the A31 between Bere Regis and Wimborne went missing over the winter months and Martin Figg, of Southill, Weymouth, tracked down what had happened.

He said: "The sign had become very dilapidated, but has been gloriously restored by the contractor to Dorset County Council.

"It's to be hoped Red Post will survive many more years, despite the appetite of the motor car for yet wider roads."

There are two other Red Posts in Dorset, one near Evershot and one north of Sherborne.

The brightly painted post has a much darker history; among stories about it is one that it was at the site of a former gibbet with the post red for obvious reasons.

But factual evidence indicates that the post was a marker or reference point for illiterate guards who were escorting prisoners from Dorchester prison to Portsmouth from where they were transported to Botany Bay, Australia.

Mr Figg said: "Being unable to read, the guards used the distinctive sign as an indicator to nearby Botany Bay Farm where prisoners were held overnight in a barn, now largely destroyed."

The substantially built barn was used as a cell for the prisoners when they were held on their first overnight stop.

Only the base of the barn walls remains now after the building burned down in the 1930s.

Mr Figg's interest in the subject has also left him wondering why there are so many other places scattered throughout the country also called Botany Bay and he asks if Echo readers have any information on this.